ENGL 331 A: Globalization and Nationalism in the Age of Empire

Instructor: Professor Chrisman, lhc3@uw.edu

Smith Hall, room 105, M/W  12.30pm-2.20pm

Office hours: Padelford B401, Mondays, 3-4pm or by email appointment

Colonies, Nations, and Diasporas in Literature, 1900-1940: African and Caribbean literatures

This class explores how material processes and ideas of empire, nation, and anti-colonialism inform and structure imaginative literature and thought from the Caribbean and continental Africa during the 'Age of Empire'. This is an upper-division class, designed for English majors, and it assumes that students already have familiarity with techniques for analysing and discussing literature. This class adopts an active learning, student-centered approach, in which students commit to generating questions, ideas, understanding and insight, through independent reflection, and dialogue with one another, facilitated by the instructor. The course may use small group discussion, large group discussion, student presentation, and instructor lecture. There is a strong emphasis on close reading of literary texts.

Primary books (on order at U. Bookstore):

Una Marson: Selected Poems

Publisher: Peepal Tree Press

ISBN: 9781845231682

Thomas Mofolo, Chaka (1925)

Publisher: Waveland Press

ISBN: 9781478607151

Please acquire your own paper copies of these novels. You will be expected to make notes inside the books.

Required Poetry:   Nontsizi Mgqwetho (South Africa) (pdfs and Word docs uploaded to Canvas)

Required Theoretical/Contextual/Political essays: Amy Jacques Garvey (Jamaica/US), Frantz Fanon (Martinique/Algeria), Joseph Chamberlain (UK), The Negro Worker (International) (pdfs and Word docs uploaded to Canvas)

Course Goals and Objectives.

1. You are able to critically explore the issues covered in the course.
2. You are able to perform competent close readings of literary texts.
3. You use writing opportunities as a space to develop sound metacognitive practices and to critically reflect on your reading and learning practices through writing.
4. You develop an awareness of literature’s ability to mediate social, political and economic issues.
5. You practice assessing your own and your peers' work in relation to our specific writing criteria.
6. You contribute to the development of a class community of learners and thinkers.

Course Policies         

• Please submit all your assignments to Canvas, in Word or pdf
• Please set your account to receive notifications from Canvas for this class, and check regularly
• This course info and materials are found in Canvas “Syllabus” (set as homepage), “Files”, and “Announcements” (NOT in Canvas “Modules”); please customize your reading habits accordingly
• Please acquire a notebook in which you handwrite notes on your reading, in-class writing activities, and keep a regular log of your class experiences and responses to those experiences. You may be asked to show me this notebook. 

Course Assignments will probably include Text Merge; 4-Column notebooks; meta-cognitive reflections; in-class writing; mid-term paper; peer review; final paper; growth statement, and may include other activities yet to be determined such as presentations and conferences.  

Class Community Norms

Respect for Difference & Learning: For us to achieve the intellectual vibrancy diversity produces, we have to be open to learning how others see and move through the world, and we have to respect everyone's experiences. We should also recognize that some people's ways of seeing and experiencing the world have been privileged, while others have been marginalized, disparaged, and sometimes met with outright violence. We should attend to that in our written and oral commentary by engaging difference with openness to learning and awareness of power dynamics.  I expect each of us to help build a class community so that all members of our class can be welcomed.

Expectations:

1) actively participating in class discussions, small group work and conferences;

2) providing timely, thoughtful, and engaged written feedback on peers’ drafts;

3) completing informal writing assignments on time; and

4) submitting all drafts and revisions of the major essays on the date they are due.

My Role: I will help you hone your critical reading skills, develop nascent ideas, engage with your peers' writing, and pursue your own writing's insights and arguments in conversation with your classmates, primary documents, and professional/scholarly texts.

Your Role: to grapple with the ideas in lectures and readings and in your peers’ writing and conversation. You should puzzle through the texts we read, not skim them; consistently demonstrate engaged, critical intelligence in your writing; and come to class and conferences fully prepared. You will need to reflect on your own writing and learning processes, and your peers’ writing, critically, and engage in revision of your own thinking and writing.

Assessment: In this course you will be assessed by a system of evaluation called “contract grading.” In a nutshell, that means I specify what you have to do to earn a particular course grade, and you decide what you’re willing and able to do and then sign up for the contract that works best for you. There are no surprises: if you fulfill the obligations of your contract, you get the grade you signed up for. Why a grade contract approach? Here are some expert views:

I have found that conventional grading often leads my students to think more about grades than about writing; to worry more about pleasing me or psyching me out than about figuring out what you really want to say or how you want to say it; to be reluctant to take risks with your writing.  Grading even makes some students feel they are working against me.  Therefore I am using a contract system for grading in this course. –Writing Studies Scholar Peter Elbow

The advantage of contract grading is that you, the student, decide how much work you wish to do this semester; if you complete that work on time and satisfactorily, you will receive the grade for which you contracted. This means planning ahead, thinking about all of your obligations and responsibilities this semester and also determining what grade you want or need in this course. The advantage of contract grading to the professor is no whining, no special pleading, on the student's part. If you complete the work you contracted for, you get the grade. Done. I respect the student who only needs a C, who has other obligations that preclude doing all of the requirements to earn an A in the course, and who contracts for the C and carries out the contract perfectly. (This is another one of those major life skills:  taking responsibility for your own workflow.) -- CUNY Professor Cathy Davidson

The class Grade Contract document is in Files: Grade Contract for English 331, Spring 2026.docx

Provisional schedule of readings, activities, assignments.

Week 1.

March 30. Introduction.

April 1. Imperialism.

Joseph Chamberlain, from 'The True Conception of Empire' (1897) pdf, in Files

Amy Jacques Garvey, "WHY WHITE MEN WANT AFRICA," APRIL 18, 1925, pdf in Files

The Negro Worker, 1929, v2, n4-aug: read pages 1- top of p. 14 (up to ‘Section IV. Reformism and the Negro’ , pdf in Files

4-Column Notebook. You will prepare two separate notebook activities, one on Chamberlain, and one on Garvey.  Please arrive in class with your Columns 1 and 2 already written up in your notebook for each text. In class, working with your assigned partner, you will complete Column 3. You will also complete Column 4 in class, which involves you reflecting on your initial Column 2 in light of your conversation with your partner (who has provided your Column 3). You will explicitly identify, in Column 4, in what ways your Column 2 response has undergone change, and how your conversation with your partner prompted the change. For those of you who missed Monday's class, please follow the guidelines for 4-Column Notebooks and Speculative Starters that are provided below.

Larger class discussion, developed from your Column 4 writing.

In-class assignment: at the conclusion of the class discussion, you will write, in class, and share to Canvas, a paragraph about how your thinking about the Chamberlain and Garvey readings, and about imperialism more broadly, has undergone further change (or has not) as a result of your listening to and taking part in the class discussion. Identify specific remarks made by your classmates, that nudged you to reconsider your responses and/or perspectives that you had not previously considered. Be explicit about how the new input from others has prompted you to revise your thinking.

Week 2.

April 6 Frantz Fanon, “On National Culture” (the yellow highlighted sections), pdf, in Files + Fanon, Reading pointers, Word doc in files: Frantz Fanon On National Culture, reading pointers.docx

Amy Jacques Garvey "WHEREFORE A NATIONAL URGE?" JUNE 6, 1925

Come to class having filled out a 4-Column Notebook Columns 1 and 2, for both Fanon and Garvey (ie, make these two separate activities).

April 8 Una Marson poems, on Jamaica:

-from Tropic Reveries: Jamaica

-from Heights and Depths: Jamaica; In Jamaica 

-from The Moth and the Star: Heartbreak Cottages; Darlingford

Come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of the above poems.

Alison Donnell (2003), Una Marson feminism, anti-colonialism and a forgotten fight for freedom [book chapter], pdf file. Read to top of p. 121. 

These are early 20th-c poems of Jamaica by a white Jamaican woman,  Mary A. Wolcott (publishing under the pen name of 'Tropica'). The poems are from her book The Island of Sunshine (1904), pdf file (in the Una Marson folder): Jamaica (p.12 of pdf, p. 1 of original book); The Heart of the Island (p.27/16); The Undertone (p.37/26); Nana (pp.50-52/39-41). 

Week 3.

April 13. Una Marson poems, on labor, laborers.

-from Heights and Depths: The Peanut Boy

-from The Moth and the Star: The Banjo Boy; The Stone Breakers; At the Prison Gates; Going to Market

Come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these poems.

Text Merge assignment overview: please come to class having read through the syllabus description of the Text Merge and having read examples of Text Merge that are housed in the Writing materials folder, in Files. Please bring any questions that you may have about it, too, to class. I will give a brief overview of the Text Merge assignment. 

April 15. Una Marson poems, on empire and diasporic experience:

-Education; The Stranger; Quashie; Foreign; To Joe and Ben; There Will Come a Time; Home Thoughts; Nostalgia

Come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these poems.

April 17. Text Merge and meta-cognitive reflection due, 11.59pm, in Canvas.

Week 4.

April 20: Una Marson poems, on Black identity, and anti-black racism:

-Nigger; “Black is Fancy”; Little Boys; Cinema Eyes; Black Burden; Brown Baby Blues

Amy Jacques Garvey, "WHITE IDOLATRY IN MOVIES," SEPT. 20, 1924 ;"ARE WE PROUD OF OUR BLACK SKINS AND CURLY HAIR?" AUG. 1, 1925 ; "EACH RACE SEES BEAUTY IN ITSELF," MAY 8, 1926 ; "I AM A NEGRO-AND BEAUTIFUL," JULY 10, 1926

Come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these poems. And come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these Garvey articles.

April 22: Una Marson poems, on women:

-The Singing Pilgrim; To Wed or Not to Wed; Another Mould; Kinky Hair Blues; To the I.A.W.S.E.C.; Lonesome Blues

Amy Jacques Garvey, "WOMEN AND WORLD PEACE," JAN. 31, 1925; "WOMEN AS LEADERS NATIONALLY AND RACIALLY,"OCT. 24, 1925; "MRS. GARVEY DELIVERS RINGING MESSAGE TO WHITE WOMEN OF LONDON AT GREAT MEETING; TELLS OF INSULTS AND SUFFERING," SEPT. 22, 1928

Come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these poems. And come to class having filled out Columns 1 and 2 of a 4-Column Notebook, that engages with a quotation from one of these Garvey articles.

Week 5.

April 27.  Jeff Opland, Xhosa literature : Spoken and printed words (volume 6). University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. (2018). Read these two chapters: Oral tradition, books, newspapers (chapter 1); The newspaper as empowering medium: the case of Nontsizi Mgqwetho (chapter 12), pdf files

Come to class having also watched these two short videos: 

Jessica Mbangeni - Praise Poet, Singer and Actress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P6_uYsZK0E&t=36s

Voices Of Africa Episode 4 - Praise poets speak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgntPu_82CA

April 29. Nontsizi Mgqwetho,  Listen Compatriots!; We’re Stabbing Africa; Show Me the Mountain that Packed Up and Left

Jeff Opland, Xhosa literature : Spoken and printed words (volume 6). University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. (2018). From  this chapter: The imbongi as trickster (chapter 5): read pages 85-89 and 94-100.

Class overview of mid-term paper assignment.

Come to class having read the syllabus descriptions of mid-term options, writing guidelines, and assessment rubrics (for traditional analytic essays).

Week 6.

May 4. Mgqwetho, The Hill Difficulty the Black Man Scales; A Red Debates with Christians

May 5. First draft of midterm 11.59pm

May 6. Peer review of mid term

May 8. Final draft of mid term 11.59pm, in Canvas.

Week 7.

May 11. Mazisi Kunene, Intro to Emperor Shaka the Great (1979), pdf files. Please read to the bottom of p. 8.

Corinne Sandwith (2021), Publishing African Literature: Towards a Transnational History, pp.99-100; pp.113-122, pdf files.

May 13. Thomas Mofolo, Chaka, chapters 1-4 

Week 8.

May 18. Chaka, chapters 5-8

May 20. Chaka, chapters 9-15 

Class overview of final paper assignment.

Come to class having read the syllabus description of final paper assignment options. 

Week 9.

May 25. no class.

May 27.  Chaka, chapters 16-17

Week 10.

June 1 Chaka,  chapters 18-26

June 2. Draft of final paper, for peer review, due  11.59pm.

June 3. Peer review of final paper.

Final papers and growth statement: June 9, 11.59pm.

Course assignment activities, class norms and assessment policies, department policies, institutional info.

On note taking (to assist with notes as you read, and with the annotations that you post; also to assist with taking notes in class).

Experiment with using the Speculative Starters (see below) for beginning your notetaking.

An alternative to conventional and systematic note taking, you might explore, to digest and remember what you are reading: 

Try writing about what you are reading instead of taking notes. Stop periodically —at the end of each chapter or when something important strikes you—and simply write about what you have read and your reactions to it. This procedure may make you nervous at first because you can't "cover" as many points or make something as neatly organized as when you take notes, but you will remember more. Perfectly organized notes that cover everything are beautiful, but they live on paper, not in your mind. 

The same procedure is helpful for lectures and discussions. You may learn more if you take no notes at all, and instead, put all your attention into listening. Then after class sit and write for ten or fifteen minutes about what you have heard and what it means to you. 

You might ask: 

What were you aware of experiencing or noticing?

What was in your mind as you did this?

Were you bored, unengaged, distracted? 

Some questions to explore when reading, thinking and writing about the texts in a class notebook/reading journal:

What confused you in the readings?

How does your own personal experience relate to what you studied today/this week?

What effect does this reading have on your beliefs, your values, your previous understanding of things?

How does this reading relate to your other courses or to other parts of this course?

Writing Prompts and Assignments.

Speculative Starters:

These prompts to thinking in a speculative, generative way invite us to “think out loud” in our exploratory writing. They serve to spark thinking, and assist in “noticing sensations.”  They can be used to catalyze thinking by oneself, or responding to someone else in Column 2 in the 4-Column Notebook

Examples of Speculative Starters:

1. I noticed. . .
2. I wonder. . .
3. I was reminded of. . .
4. I’m surprised that. . .
5. I’d like to know. . .
6. I realized. . .
7. I am struck by. . .
8. I don’t understand. . .
9. I think. . .
10. I’m not sure. . . 

4-Column (Dialectical) Notebook:

Column 1: Choose and write down here one quotation from the text you want to think on in “conversation” with another reader of the same text.

Column 2:  Fill this column with generative writing rising out of your selected quotation in column 1. Use Speculative Starters to coax and encourage your emergent thinking about the language you’ve chosen.

Column 3: Trade Notebooks with another student. Read each other’s Column 2, and record your response in Column 3 of their notebook. Again, use Speculative Starters to further your thoughts in relation to what they’ve written.

Column 4. In your own notebook, write on ‘What I am Thinking Now’, in response to the previous 3 columns.

Text Merge:

This reveals what happens when one text is interrupted or disrupted by another text. It consists of combining language from two different texts into another creation, to produce a poem, prose, or nonsense piece. Always it seems to illuminate texts in new and surprising ways. 

For this course’s text merge activities, you will select a passage from one of the imaginative (fictional) literary texts studied to date in the class, and will choose a passage from a non-prescribed publication of your preference. It could be a news item; it could be a prayer; it could be a sports commentary; it could be a scientific report (to give a few examples). Merge your chosen words from both texts, to create a new piece of writing. You don’t need to use all the words from each selected text. You may merge individual words, or entire lines/sentences, or phrases--it's up to you. You may write using any writing genre (poem, drama, prose, eg) that you wish. You may write a nonsense piece. It's helpful to be guided by your impulses, intuitions, in making your choices, selections, merging, rather than to let your left brain monitor or control the process and its outcome.  Your intended audience for this writing assignment: yourself, primarily.  

NB: you cannot add new words or change the tenses of the original texts. Merging is merging: that is, you physically bring the texts together. It is not a merge if you keep your textual extracts separated.

Please provide the original passages/phrases on your first page and on the second page present the merging itself. The word minimum for the merge? There is not one.  

Metacognitive Reflection for Text Merge (minimum 250 words). This is best done immediately upon completing your text merge, while the process is still very fresh. Respond to each of the following questions:

How and why did you choose your non-prescribed text from which to merge with a course prescribed text?

What were you aware of experiencing, sensing, feeling, or noticing as you prepared and executed the Text Merge?

What if anything happened to your understanding of the first text (prescribed) when disrupted by the second non-prescribed text?  What happened to your understanding of the second text, when interrupted by the first text? 

You are required to post both your Text Merge and your metacognitive reflections on Canvas, together: please upload them as a single document.

Grading criteria (graded as complete or incomplete): you will be assessed on the basis of your adherence to the exercise instructions above.

See the 'Text merging' file for examples of text merge: NB YOU MUST READ ALL OF THE DOCUMENT. THE FIRST TWO PAGES DO NOT CONTAIN THE TEXT MERGE; THEY CONTAIN THE ORIGINAL TEXT EXTRACTS THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN MERGED.

Peer Reviewing.

The class will follow the ‘Criterion-based’ and the 'Reader-based' approaches to peer reviewing, as detailed in the Peter Elbow pdf (in Files). When you share your writing to your peer reviewers, please indicate whether you prefer 'Criterion'- or 'Reader'- based feedback.

Mid-term traditional paper (1,200-1,500 words):

This course’s mid-term traditional (analytic) paper pursues close readings of primary literary texts. Although it’s not a research-oriented paper, you are welcome to incorporate secondary material to enhance your textual analysis and argumentation. This paper places literary texts in some kind of conversation and comparison. You are responsible for choosing the topic and texts.

Choose, explore, and analyse three poems from the prescribed  literature studied to date. At least one must be by Marson, and one must be by Mqwetho. You may not write about course texts that you have already engaged with in your Text Merge. Place these works in conversation regarding a topic of your choice.

Examples of topics (by no means exhaustive): freedom, colonialism, empire, nationalism,  resistance, spirituality, the natural environment, traditional culture, labor.

You will explore the representation and significance of the topic in the texts. Your paper should include an explanation or argument for why this grouping of works is valuable, and why your selected topic is important for an understanding of the literary texts. What kind of light do the selected texts cast on one another? 

All essays must include at least six quotations in total, from the texts. Only quote a text for the purposes of analyzing its contents (and not to demonstrate that you have read the text). 

All papers should be in 12 point, Times New Roman, double spaced, each page numbered, 1” margins all round.

You must use MLA paper formatting (including Name and page headers) and include a word count at the end. The word count includes quotations.

You will be penalized for writing fewer than 1,200 words. This word count does NOT include the Meta-Cognitive Reflection.

You must also include, at the end of your paper, a Meta-Cognitive Reflection of 250 words minimum, telling me how this writing project went for you.

I'm interested in your discoveries and obstacles at every stage. Some questions to address in your reflection:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a piece of cake and 10 being mission impossible,
how challenging was this assignment for you, and why?
2. Why did you choose the subject and approach that you chose?
3. What went well for you in the composing activities, and what was more difficult? Did you have any epiphanies or smaller discoveries while reading/writing?
4. If you had additional time to revise this piece, what would be your first priority, and why?
5. What impact did peer review have on your draft revision?

Grading criteria (complete/incomplete): this comes from your adherence to the instructions as given here and in the grading rubric. If you do not follow the instructions, your work will be marked as incomplete.

Mid-term personal essay paper (1,200-1,500 words):

This course’s non-traditional mid-term paper explores the class readings to date, through the form of a personal essay which analyzes the ways in which your personal relationship to/understanding of the course materials (literary, contextual, critical/theoretical)  has developed through the course to date. You must quote from at least four poems by the two prescribed primary creative authors studied to date (you need to quote from both poets)  and you must quote from at least two of the non-creative authors studied to date.  Only quote a text for the purposes of analyzing its contents (and not to demonstrate that you have read the text). 

Although it’s not a research-oriented paper, you are welcome to incorporate secondary material to enhance your analysis.

All papers should be in 12 point, Times New Roman, double spaced, each page numbered, 1” margins all round.

You must use MLA paper formatting (including Name and page headers) and include a word count at the end. The word count includes quotations.

You will be penalized for writing fewer than 1,200 words. This word count does NOT include the Meta-Cognitive Reflection.

You must also include, at the end of your paper, a Meta-Cognitive Reflection of 250 words minimum, telling me how this writing project went for you.

I'm interested in your discoveries and obstacles at every stage. Some questions to address in your reflection:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a piece of cake and 10 being mission impossible,
how challenging was this assignment for you, and why?
2. Why did you choose the personal essay approach, instead of the traditional essay approach?
3. What went well for you in the composing activities, and what was more difficult? Did you have any epiphanies or smaller discoveries while reading/writing?
4. If you had additional time to revise this piece, what would be your first priority, and why?
5. What impact did peer review have on your draft revision?

Grading criteria (complete/incomplete): this comes from your adherence to the instructions as given here and in the grading rubric. If you do not follow the instructions, your work will be marked as incomplete.

TIPS:

This writing consists of a total of 4 letters, addressed to materials from any of the prescribed class readings THAT YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT IN YOUR TEXT MERGE AND IN YOUR MID TERM. You may address all of the letters to elements taken of the novel, The Creation of Half-Broken People. If you are engaging with short works (poems or prose), however, each letter must engage with a different prescribed text.  In order to  develop a detailed engagement with the subject matter, each letter must be at least 400 words; you must state the word count at the end of each TIPS letter. Please adhere to MLA formatting.  

TIPS is an acronym for Thing, Idea, Person, Self. Your Thing, Idea, and Person. You need to write, using the letter genre, in the first person and use the second person to address your selected Thing/Idea/Person/Self. You must quote from the literary text at least once in each letter.

 The 'Thing' letter is written by you to a 'Thing', defined as any inanimate object that makes an appearance in the literary text. The 'Idea' letter is written to what you identify as an idea contained in the literary text (through a character, a scene, a dialogue, a descriptive passage, the text itself as a complete entity, etc). The 'Person' to whom you address the letter can be any sentient being that makes an appearance in the literary text (includes plants and animals). The Self letter needs to explore some aspect of yourself in relation to the literary text; you might converse with an emotion that you felt while reading the text, for instance, or a perception that underwent some change as you read or reread the text, and so on. 

With the exception of the ‘Self’ letter, which must be written by a version of yourself, to a version of yourself, letters may be written by a persona (historical, contemporary, real, invented, derived from a literary/cultural text from the class or from outside of it, human, sentient, or inanimate).  

Audience for these letters (ie, for which reader are you writing these?): myself, as instructor. That means that you can assume the reader’s familiarity with the literary text and do not need to spend time describing storyline, characters, setting, etc. However you do need to quote at least once from the text in each letter, and keep your writing emphasis on textual engagement. The purpose of the activity is to enter into a personal, imaginative conversation with the novel, that offers insight and enquiry while not pursuing a traditional essay format of argumentation and analysis.

Grading criteria (Complete/Incomplete): “Completion” requires your adherence to the exercise instructions, which include honoring letter-writing conventions and statement of word count at the end of each letter. If you turn the letter into an essay, you depart from the conventions of the letter form and your grade will suffer. This is an imaginative writing exercise, not a conventional academic writing exercise. 

Meta-cognitive Reflection to accompany TIPS (ie, one reflection serves for the four letters):

This is to be 250 words minimum, telling me how this writing project went for you. You must state the word count at the end of the reflection. I'm interested in your discoveries and obstacles at every stage. Some questions to address in your
reflection:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a piece of cake and 10 being mission impossible, how challenging was this assignment for you, and why?
2. Why did you choose the subject and approach that you chose?
3. What went well for you in the composing activities, and what was more difficult? Did you have any epiphanies or smaller discoveries while reading/writing?
4. If you had additional time to revise this piece, what would be your first priority, and why?
5. What impact did peer review have on your draft revision?

Grading criteria (complete/incomplete): adherence to the instructions above and in the TIPS grading rubric. If you do not follow the instructions, your work will be marked as incomplete.

Final Research Paper:

This course has explored its literary texts through different methodological lenses: close reading, scholarly literary-textual criticism, theoretical-conceptual criticism, contextual-historical criticism. Your final research paper asks you to blend at least some of these approaches in the construction of a more substantial argument, that explores the many issues, concepts, contexts, or problems we have discussed over the quarter in relation to our primary texts.

The topic and argument of the paper is self-directed. You may choose to write about one or more of the prescribed class readings THAT YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT IN YOUR TEXT MERGE AND IN YOUR MID TERM.  This means that you generate your own argument based on independent reading, research, analysis, and interpretation (in conjunction with class discussion, of course). Please adhere to MLA formatting.

Word count: 2,100-2,700 words, not including Works Cited. You will be penalized for writing fewer than 2,100 words. You must include the word count at the end of the paper. You are required to undertake independent research in secondary sources, and use this research in your paper. You should engage with at least five outside (ie, non-prescribed) secondary sources, which you will list in your Works Cited page as well as utilize in your paper itself. Any secondary/scholarly (as opposed to primary/archival) sources must be peer-reviewed works: books/book chapters, journal articles that are published by academic presses. If you use two chapters from the same edited book/anthology, that counts as one source, even if your selected chapters are by different authors.  

You must also include, at the end of your paper, a Meta-Cognitive Reflection of 250 words minimum, telling me how this writing project went for you. I'm interested in your discoveries and obstacles at every stage. Some questions to address in your
reflection:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a piece of cake and 10 being mission impossible, how challenging was this assignment for you, and why?
2. Why did you choose the subject and approach that you chose?
3. What went well for you in the composing activities, and what was more difficult? Did you have any epiphanies or smaller discoveries while reading/writing?
4. If you had additional time to revise this piece, what would be your first priority, and why?
5. What impact did peer review have on your draft revision?

Grading criteria (complete/incomplete): this comes from your adherence to the instructions as given here and in the grading rubric. If you do not follow the instructions, your work will be marked as incomplete.

Growth Statement:

You will hopefully undergo significant growth in learning and writing over the quarter. Part of the educational process involves submitting a 1000 word (minimum) narrative self-evaluation (“Growth Statement”) at the conclusion of the course, where you explain and demonstrate your growth as a learner, writer, and class community member. You will be expected to give evidence from your written and oral contributions. These should include specific examples from your participation in (for instance) peer reviewing, communication with your professor, participating in 4-column notebooks, meta-cognitive reflections, in-class discussions, writing assignments. Your growth statement should address the course goals and objectives listed in the syllabus. You need to state the word count at the end of the evaluation.

General tips, cautions, and requests on writing:

I like the use of the first person to present your argument. If you are uncomfortable using the first person, however, don’t do it: just be careful to write in a way that foregrounds your own argument and avoids the appearance of descriptiveness or derivativeness.

Follow the critical convention of analyzing literature in the present tense.

If you are writing traditional analytic essays:

-Regarding paper titles: Use essay titles that set up a concept, or issue, to be explored. You can use a colon in your title, that creates room for a subtitle that alludes to the specific authors/texts/arguments that your essay will focus on.

-Your introduction should have a clear relationship to your title. Please do not open your introduction with a broad generalization that is intended to serve as a ‘hook’ for the reader. Throughout the essay, please avoid sweeping and unsubstantiated statements. Your primary purpose, in your essays for me, is to analyse and interpret your primary texts. This may involve your use of research and theorization/conceptualization from reliable scholarly sources, to situate and illuminate your texts. It does not involve presenting unsupported statements. This approach is not academically rigorous, and invites rebuttal or scepticism from this reader (ie, myself).

-Rather than generalize, present claims that you can substantiate with scholarship, and/or with examples from reliable sources. This means that instead of something writing like ‘it is widely known that Western culture is essentially dominatory’, you might write ‘In [this named article], the theorist X contends that Western culture is dominatory’. Instead of writing ‘Since time immemorial, humans have done X’, you might write ‘Examples of humans behaving [in a certain way] can be found in a variety of historical periods; such examples include…[give a source].  

-Analyse, rather than describe, the literary text.  Assume that the reader is familiar with the primary text and does not need to have a description of it. When you quote from the literature it should be in order to make a point and to advance your analysis.

Remember when writing essays on fiction to avoid presenting characters as if they are real humans; they are fictional inventions and devices. If you are interested in exploring a character, pivot your attention to analysing how the writer presents characters. Consider the effects and implications of these authorial choices, and how these choices advance understanding of the literary text, and/or of your essay’s topic. Remember, too that a fictional text consists of more than represented characters. Other elements of a text include: narrative structure; narratorial stance and technique; imagery; language; ideology; intertextual relationship to other texts.

Everybody whether writing traditional or non-traditional pieces : Keep paragraphs within a readable length: don’t make them as long as a double-spaced page. If your paragraph is that long, it will contain more than one primary topic; look for the point where you can divide the paragraph into two.

Everybody: Avoid writing sentences that aren’t sentences, because they lack verbs. These are sentence fragments. For example: There are two problems with her expression. The first BEING poor punctuation. The latter is a fragment.

In short: keep your emphasis on exploring the text—its ideas, its structure, and its style.

Here is a link to the MLA guidelines:
http://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/mla-format/ (Links to an external site.)

The Purdue Online Writing Lab is a useful resource on the mechanics of writing.
See in particular the sections and (left margin) subsections on
Paragraphs:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/paragraphs_and_paragraphing/index.html
Thesis Statements:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/establishing_arguments/index.html
Writing Mechanics:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/index.html
Punctuation:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/index.html

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Office Hours: 

This is a time where you and I can meet outside class to discuss assignments, questions about the reading, concerns about expectations, etc.  If my scheduled hours are inaccessible to you, please email me to make appointments for another time. 

Emailing etiquette: 

-If you need to miss a class, please EMAIL ME IN ADVANCE OF THE CLASS to let me know that you will be absent. This communication is not only a courtesy to me, it is an aspect of your belonging to a class community.

-Please do not e-mail me questions that are answered explicitly in the syllabus or elsewhere on the Canvas site.

-Please do not email me to ask what you have missed by not attending a class. I encourage you instead to contact a classmate to get caught up.

Academic Honesty: 

It is essential that you properly cite other people’s ideas and language in your writing. Academic integrity is a fundamental university value. Through the honest completion of academic work, students sustain the integrity of the university while facilitating the university’s imperative for the transmission of knowledge and culture based upon the generation of new and innovative ideas.

When an instance of suspected or alleged academic dishonesty by a student arises, it shall be resolved according to the procedures standard at the University of Washington.

English Department’s Statement of Values:

The UW English Department aims to help students become more incisive thinkers, effective communicators, and imaginative writers by acknowledging that language and its use is powerful and holds the potential to empower individuals and communities; to provide the means to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration across differences and with those with whom we disagree; and to offer methods for exploring, understanding, problem solving, and responding to the many pressing collective issues we face in our world—skills that align with and support the University of Washington’s mission to educate “a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders through a challenging learning environment informed by cutting-edge scholarship.”

As a department, we begin with the conviction that language and texts play crucial roles in the constitution of cultures and communities.  Our disciplinary commitments to the study of language, literature, and culture require of us a willingness to engage openly and critically with questions of power and difference. As such, in our teaching, service, and scholarship we frequently initiate and encourage conversations about topics such as race, immigration, gender, sexuality, and class.  These topics are fundamental to the inquiry we pursue.  We are proud of this fact, and we are committed to creating an environment in which our faculty and students can do so confidently and securely, knowing that they have the backing of the department.

Towards that aim, we value the inherent dignity and uniqueness of individuals and communities. We aspire to be a place where human rights are respected and where any of us can seek support. This includes people of all ethnicities, faiths, genders, national origins, political views, and citizenship status; LGBQTIA+; those with disabilities; veterans; and anyone who has been targeted, abused, or disenfranchised.

Statement on Religious Accommodation:

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation,

Is available here:

https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/

Writing Centers:

Wherever you fall on the spectrum of writing in this course— whether you are struggling with a writing assignment or seeking to “reach the next level”— take advantage of the UW’s writing centers. You will receive feedback and guidance on your writing from me and from your classmates, but it’s also valuable to get the perspective of someone outside the course (especially someone with expertise in producing academic writing!). UW’s writing centers are free for students and provide individual attention from trained readers and writing coaches. This quarter they will offer remote writing appointments.

The Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC) offers free, one-on-one help with all aspects of writing at any stage in the writing process. You can consult with a writing tutor at any stage of the writing process, from the very beginning (when you are planning a paper) to near the end (when you are thinking about how to revise a draft to submit to your instructor). To make the best use of your time there, please bring a copy of your assignment with you and double-space any drafts you want to bring in. While OWRC writing consultants are eager to help you improve your writing, they will not proofread your paper. Available spots are limited, so book your appointments early! 

Access and Accommodations:

Your experience in this class is important to me. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations. Contact DRS at disability.uw.edu.

On Plagiarism, Generative AI, ChatGPT, and other Large Language Models

 (from my colleague Maya Sonenburg): 

While I whole-heartedly agree that great writers “steal” from the work of others, this really means influence and inspiration. They do NOT do this word for word, line for line.   If I find that you have been using another writer’s (including another student writer’s) words without attribution, we will need to have a serious chat and you run the risk of failing this class. This includes using A.I., ChatGPT, or other large language models. You may use the spell and check in your word processing program, but not stand-alone sites like Grammarly.

Please do not use A.I. in any form in this class, at any stage of the writing, reading, commenting, or revising process. There is no university-wide policy on this issue, and you may find other professors approaching this in a different way. This is the rule for my class. I will not be using an “AI checker” (I hear such things are pretty useless anyway), but if you do use a large language model, you will be missing out on the entire purpose of taking this class. 

Here’s why:

• Carrying out every step of the writing process from brainstorming to copy-editing helps you figure out what you think and what you truly mean to say—and I believe this is true for ALL types of writing (academic papers, grocery lists, emails to future bosses, texts to your friends, thank you cards to your grandparents, etc,). Farming this out to a computational model robs you of your own agency.
• Using this technology may not save you time. Some studies have shown that students may spend as much time revising and adapting work generated by large language models as they would have responding to the assignment on their own.
• Using this technology may make things easier—but that’s not the point of writing! Only by going through the entire writing process from daydreaming to brainstorming to drafting to revising and daydreaming again can you figure out what you really want to create and convey. Short-stopping that process robs you of learning and of the satisfaction of success. I believe this is true for ANY writing assignment, not just the ones in my class.
• Using this technology is a form of theft—or at least plagiarism. This technology has been trained using other writers’ works, many not in the public domain and most without the writer’s permission. When you use this technology, you participate in this process.
• Using this technology feeds and supports a billion dollar industry. By using it, you are, in fact, helping to train future generations of AI—without receiving compensation of any kind. The Author’s Guild, the Writer’s Guild of America, and SAG-AFTRA all see this as an important labor issue. Hollywood strikes during 2023 were, in part, about this issue.
• This technology uses a lot of electricity and other resources. It is not a “free gift of nature.”
• For now at least, this technology is biased and error-prone. While this may be more relevant if you are attempting an accurate historical novel than if you are working on a space opera set in a world of your own invention, it’s still worth noting.
• Even if using A.I. is easier and faster, I put it to you that speed and ease are not the purpose of art or art creation. For example, take a look at this behind-the scenes video showing how Gandalf was made to look larger than the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies, although all the actors were generally the same size. It's a tale of human ingenuity, hands-on construction, collaboration, and even fun. Then take a look at this video of Ian McKellen  's reaction to having to use green screen technology  while filming the Hobbit movies.

Resources

Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art , Ted Chiang

Why Human Writing is Worth Defending in the Age of ChatGPT , Naomi S. Baron

More than 10,000 Authors Sign Authors Guild Letter

A.I. Licensing for Authors: Who Owns the Rights and What's a Fair Split? The Authors Guild

Generative A.I. Can't Cite Its Sources: How Will OpenAI Keep Its Promises to Media Companies? Matteo Wong

OpenAi is a billion-dollar company. Writers deserve more for their contribution to its success , Diya Sabharwal

The Endgame for A.I. is Clear: Rip Off Everyone , Lincoln Michel

AI in the Arts is the Destruction of the Film Industry. We Can’t Go Quietly , Justine Bateman

Humans are Biased. Generative AI Is Even Worse , Leonardo Nicoletti and Dina Bass for Bloomberg Technology

AI tools show biases in ranking job applicants’ names according to perceived race and gender, Stefan Milne (UW News)

AI brings soaring emissions for Google and Microsoft, a major contributor to climate change , Dara Kerr

Links to various writings by Professor Emily Bender , UW Professor of Linguistics and Director of the UW Computational Linguistics Laboratory